


Darkness, Never Light

by StevetheIcecube



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Gen, Hoshido | Birthright Route, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 13:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8163902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StevetheIcecube/pseuds/StevetheIcecube
Summary: Kamui was stolen away from them when she was eight years old, and when a person comes back who LOOKS like her but says they aren't, they all find it hard to accept.This 'Corrin' causes the death of their mother and then has the nerve to choose to fight with them as if they are part of their family. But Takumi is sure that they're an impostor, and he's desperate to prove it.





	

When the little girl smiled, Xander felt confusion shoot through his mind. She was older than Leo, but there was something distinctly off about her. There was something so, so wrong.

He inhaled, and then he realised what had been wrong when she smiled. She wasn't like him. Her teeth were flat and dull, like Elise's had been when she was born, but they weren't now. And when he inhaled...she was human. She was alive, she had blood, and for some reason it was harder to control himself now than it ever had been when he was around servants and soldiers who had not yet been converted to be like him.

He smiled back at her hesitantly, and her smile merely widened into a grin. She wasn't scared of him, and more than anything, that surprised him. Why wasn't she scared? What had he done that meant she couldn't sense what he was? He knew that humans were naturally afraid of his kind, that they wouldn't smile back when confronted by an older, taller, broader person who was too cold and had the teeth of a monster. But this little girl, she smiled. She smiled and then she held her arms out to him, babbling in a tongue he only barely recognised as Hoshidan. He didn't understand Hoshidan, but he was still learning.

"Hello," he said hesitantly, and she laughed at his obviously dreadful Hoshidan accent.

"Hello," she corrected, and it sounded like he'd gotten far more wrong than a little error in accent inflection. "I am Kamui." Her name was soft and exotic, and they were words that Xander would never forget, even though he knew of what his father intended for her, so he knew that she wouldn't retain the name for much longer than the next few, and final few, hours of her life.

She was going to be the first person he ever turned, in preparation for turning his new retainers. The retainers fit for a future king, his father had told him, even though he'd told Xander in the past that only the paranoid appoint people to look after them at their every breath. But now his father said that he needed them, and he had chosen two of the finest warriors in the land to attend to the job. The first was a wyvern lord from Cheve, the second a general born and raised in Windmire, and Xander had never encountered two people who were so different in his life, but that hadn't been the point when Father had appointed them. They were incredibly fine fighters, and he wasn't convinced that he would ever be able to best them in battle.

"I am Xander," he said, and at his words, Kamui started to laugh, apparently finding something very funny. He knew he wasn't all that good at Hoshidan, but he didn't know he was all that bad. Maybe it was because she was young. Maybe that meant she just giggled at everything without understanding it, just like Elise was prone to doing.

Then she stood, shakily, despite clearly being old enough to walk short distances without assistance, and then she ran away down the hall. Xander let her go, knowing that she wouldn't escape the fate that was coming for her.

He would have felt bad for the young child, the one he believed was Princess Kamui of Hoshido, but this was a matter of retaliation as well as protection. He had heard from his father that the girl he considered a sister, Azura, had been taken away from them by Hoshidan ninjas. The idea that she would be burnt at the stake for what she was became more of a reality every day, and even if she was not killed that way, it became more and more plain to Xander in the course of his study of Hoshido that the country was just not suited to people of their kind. He knew that Azura would be miserable in the country, so far from her home and her people, and he thought it was only fitting that they should have a member of the Hoshidan royal family in return. If they were to introduce Azura to a light where she did not belong, Xander would happily draw Kamui into the dark. He would do better for her than the Hoshidans would ever be able to do for Azura, he could guarantee it. He could make her belong here, in the dark kingdom of Nohr that he loved so much.

-

Xander had been turned when he was very small. He did not remember the day when it happened, he never would remember it, he was much too young to have formed conscious thoughts at that time. He had not, however, anticipated that turning young Kamui would pain her as much as it did. He had not developed any kind of bond with her, not yet, but he wasn't as heartless as he sometimes feared his father or little brother was. He understood that when little children cried in the way that Kamui was crying, it meant they were in pain. Great, unimaginable pain.

Xander felt bad when he heard her screams, but he still found solace in the thought that this was the best way for Kamui to survive in this world of darkness. He didn't imagine that many humans would be able to last very long, not when people like himself thirsted for blood. Kamui was one who would not survive at all. Xander had tasted her blood on his tongue for a brief moment after he sunk his teeth into her neck, and pulling himself away was just as hard then as it was when he was very young, or when he had gone a few days without sustenance. Her blood tasted wonderful, smelled wonderful, there was no denying it, and she would never survive out there in the pack of mongrels that ran about the streets. Even the servants, as composed as they seemed, had been caught almost draining the occasional piece of food dry.

As a member of the royal family, Xander was allowed to drain prisoners of war dry if he truly wished to, but he didn't. He couldn't stand the thought that he was turning a husband, a wife, a mother or a brother, a sister, a child, into nothing more than a common piece of food that any human would eat off of a plate. He couldn't bear that thought, and for that reason alone he would never be able to drain another living being dry. He knew, though, that Leo killed when he pleased, and Camilla would frequently go that far too, though they both killed for vastly different reasons.

Leo killed because he frequently forgot to eat, and that left him with a bloodlust that he could not control when his teeth closed around a tender vein. Xander had to worry about his little brother, because he was sure that the boy, barely the age of seven, took joy in the deaths of people.

Camilla, though, her reason was one that Xander could empathise with. Elise was still young, and she said she never wanted her to kill when she didn't mean to, she didn't want her to kill before she understood what death was, so she would kill a person and then they would share the blood as she taught Elise how to feed herself.

Xander was brought back to the present by Kamui going slack, falling into his arms as she lost grip on the consciousness that she had been holding on to for quite an impressive length of time, at least for a girl as young as she was. He wanted to leave her be, he wanted to leave her as he was meant to, to let her complete this part with only the servants to look after her when she woke. That was what his father had told him to do, but he couldn't.

He couldn't leave, so he held her hand until he felt the pulse slow, until it stopped altogether.

He looked at her. Her face was very pale, paler than he remembered Hoshidans typically being, but that meant nothing. He was sure she would fit in here. After all, she was one of them now.


End file.
